Denbow sets high bar for Legions

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This article was published 09/08/2019 (2240 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The last time Lara Denbow started her run toward the high-jump bar at the Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships, things went fairly well.

Denbow cleared 1.70 metres, and stood atop the podium at Brandon’s UCT Stadium with a national under-16 girls’ gold medal around her neck. Now she’s in Cape Breton, N.S., with the goal of capturing a U18 high jump medal Saturday, and possibly one in the triple jump Sunday.

“It was a pretty important and cool moment in terms of my athletic career so far and it inspires me to keep going,” Denbow said via phone from Cape Breton on Thursday. “It’ll be another great experience.”

“It’s a new weekend,” she added. “I can’t dwell on what happened, I just got to do what I do. Last year isn’t going to get me anything.”

That’s an accurate assessment. The 15-year-old is up in a new age category, as U16 is only open to athletes born in 2004 or later. And last year’s jumps don’t mean anything this weekend.

Past performances can bring confidence, however, and the Neepawa native has built quite a bit of it this season. Two weeks ago she won a bronze medal at U20 nationals in Montreal, clearing the bar at 1.68m. Earlier in the event, she broke the U18 provincial triple jump record with a jump of 11.98m to make the final, eventually finishing fifth.

“Now I’m competing against kids my age, so it’s a little nicer,” Denbow said. “I think I stand a pretty good chance … The big thing is just keeping a clear head. I call it tunnel vision, doing what you have to do, not focusing on the rest.

“In terms of high jump, take as few faults as possible. In terms of triple jump, just have good, consistent run throughs to the board and just do my thing, not focus so much on what’s happening around me.”

This year, Denbow and the Prairie Storm Athletics team welcomed Raegan Ricard of Mariapolis, who comes with no shortage of experience for a 14-year-old. Ricard competed with Team Manitoba at Legion nationals last year, and won three provincial medals at high school provincials with the Prairie Mountain Predators in June — junior varsity girls’ 4x100m relay silver, medley relay bronze and 800m bronze.

“It’s been good,” Ricard said of her time with Prairie Storm. “They’ve been really welcoming and helpful. When you finish a hard race they always congratulate you, and say you’ve done a good job on your workouts.”

Ricard qualified for the U16 800m and 1,200m finals this weekend, and while she says she’s a little nervous, that doesn’t hurt at big events. She got her first taste of a major competition as a nine-year-old at the Hershey’s Track and Field Games in Pennsylvania.

“I get more nervous when I run with the faster people, but you try and stay with the leaders so that makes you faster. I think I run better with it,” she said.

Ricard’s 1,200m final goes today, and her 800m final is Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, Peighton Johnson of Baldur and Jorja Hoad of Brandon are in the U18 girls’ 100m and 200m. The 100m preliminaries begin this morning with the final a few hours later in the afternoon. The 200m preliminaries and final are on Sunday.

Neepawa’s Daxx Turner is on the provincial team and competing in the U18 boys’ high jump today and triple jump Sunday, while Neepawa’s Riley Neufeld is also in the triple jump.

Turner holds the U18 provincial triple jump record with his jump of 15.04m earlier this season. That mark is just 15 centimetres off of the national record set by Tacuma Anderson-Richards of Calgary in 1995.

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